Black Clover: The Joy of Long-Running Anime

Today is April 6th, 2021. It's a Tuesday, a lonely Tuesday. It's the first Tuesday without a new episode of Black Clover in three and a half years.
Anime come and go, especially seasonal anime. The fandom just finished saying goodbye to the heartwarming romance Horimiya and the thrilling Sk8 the Infinity. We're also eagerly awaiting the next installments of popular works like Attack on Titan, Dr.Stone, The Quintessential Quintuplets, Mushoku Tensei and the sensational Jujutsu Kaisen. There's also the very special Wonder Egg Priority which had it's conclusion delayed to June. Anime fans greeted those shows in January and spent three months getting invested in those stories. Now Spring has come with a whole new line-up of sequels, originals and high profile adaptations to watch.

But goodbyes hit differently when it comes to weekly anime and when a show goes on for as long as Black Clover did the fans experience it in a different way.

 A seasonal anime can become part of your routine, it can be something you look forward to every week but it never becomes a constant in one's life. I can watch other shows, I can even watch "Better" shows. However the comfort and reassurance of a Black Clover episode every Tuesday is something I just cant get from any other anime. 
I remember reading the first volume of Yuki Tabata's Black Clover and not being impressed. It did have the distinction of being the only medieval fantasy manga in Weekly Shonen Jump but a story of a scrappy underdog working hard to achieve his goal was a story fans my age had already gotten tired of, even if we didn't understand why. Still, I kept reading and to use a tired phrase in the anime community "it got better".
When the trailer for the anime came out in the summer of 2017 I thought "People are gonna hate this. It's coming out right after HeroAca ends too. I'll probably go blind from reading "hey it's Naruto and Sasuke" or "this is so cliché" comments over and over". The anime being promoted as "The New King of Shonen" doomed the series to hype backlash from any new viewers.

And I was right. The first wasn't very well received. I wouldn't have guessed most of the complaints would be directed towards Asta's voice, nevertheless the comments about  the series being predictable were....predictable.

Even so, the anime "got better". The show made it to more interesting arcs and people got see more characters and fight scenes. We also got THIRTEEN excellent openings, the last of which trended at #1 on Youtube in the United States. Now where things really get interesting and for me where I think Black Clover really found it's stride is in it's the animation quality.

Black Clover was originally scheduled for 51 episodes however on for 170 episodes, more than twice as long. Shows with that length are pretty rare nowadays. Making a TV show is already hard so a tight schedule only makes things worse. You can learn more about Black Clover's production here and here.

Thanks to sites like Twitter and Sakugabooru anime fans get to know who is responsible for working on their favorite scenes and I think that greatly contributed to the series gaining popular. Black Clover wasn't consistent, there were janky cuts hear and there. Even so, whenever the show delivered a well produced episode it usually exceeded expectations and it got the fandom talking.

Tatsuya Yoshira, the director of the series became a hero to the fandom almost as revered as Yuki Tabata. His storyboards, and key animation were incredible and any episode that  listed him with direct involvement was highly anticipated by viewers. 

I am so happy we got the anime this way. I understand that  the circumstances weren't ideal which is why I'm immensely grateful to Tatsuya Yoshihara, Hahi,Takaya Sunagawa, Isuta Meister, and the many many talented people who brought this show to life. Black Clover was beautiful, entertaining and a special part of my life and many others.

Till next time.